The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a subject access request as this is best dealt with by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The complaint
Mr X is a court appointed deputy for health and welfare for Mr A. Mr X complains the Council failed to comply with a subject access request (SAR) he made in relation to the data the Council holds about Mr A and how it dealt with a subsequent complaint Mr X made to it about its handling of this provided a vexatious and frivolous response which included many irrelevant documents which Mr X had to spend time sorting through, and repeatedly shared personal information about Mr A without Mr A’s consent.
Mr X wants the Council to be held accountable for data protection breaches, for it to apologise for how it dealt with the SAR, for it to carry out staff training in how to respond to such requests and renumeration for the time he had to spend sorting through the Council’s response.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended) It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we will not deal with the substantive issue
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the UK’s independent authority on data protection matters and it is best placed to respond to the concerns Mr X raises about how the Council responded to the SAR request and the other data protection issues Mr X complains about.
We will not investigate how the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint, as a stand-alone matter, as I do not consider Mr X is caused a level of personal injustice from this that would warrant our involvement. It is generally not a good use of our limited resources to investigate complaints about complaint handling when we will not investigate the substantive matter.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is best dealt with by the ICO.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman